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Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Communist troops took Tuva in January 1920. The chaos accompanying this era allowed the Tuvans to again proclaim their independence. On 14 August 1921, the Bolsheviks (supported by Russia) established a Tuvan People's Republic, called Tannu Tuva until 1926. Tannu refers to the Tannu-ola Mountains while Tuva is derived from the ethnicity Tuvan.

The capital Khem-Beldir was eventually renamed Kyzyl ('red' in Tuvan; in Tuvan and Russian: Кызыл; in 1922-26 named "Красный", Krasnyy, 'red' in Russian). A treaty between the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People's Republic in 1926 affirmed the country’s independence. No other countries formally recognized it, although it appeared on maps and globes produced in the United States.

1930s American map of Asia that includes the Tuvan People's Republic.

Tuva’s first Prime Minister was Donduk Kuular of the Tuvan People's Revolutionary Party. Kuular made Buddhism the state religion and tried to limit settlers and propaganda coming from Russia. He also tried to establish ties with Mongolia. The Soviet Union became increasingly alarmed by these initiatives and in 1929 Prime Minister Kuular was arrested and later executed in the 1929 Tuvan coup d'état. In the USSR meanwhile (in 1930) five members of the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV), the same group that executed Kuular, were appointed "commissars extraordinary" for Tuva. Staunchly loyal to Joseph Stalin's government, they purged the Tuvan People's Revolutionary Party of about a third of its members and pushed collectivisation in the traditionally nomadic cattle-breeding country.

The new government set about trying to destroy Buddhism and shamanism in Tuva, a policy encouraged by Stalin. Evidence of the success of these actions can be seen in the decline in the numbers of lamas in the country: in 1929 there were 25 lamaseries and about 4,000 lamas and Shamans; in 1931 there was just one lamasery, 15 lamas, and approximately 725 shamans. The attempts at eradicating nomadic husbandry were more difficult. A census in 1931 showed that 82.2% of Tuvans still engaged in nomadic cattle breeding. Salchak Toka, one of the commissars extraordinary mentioned above, was made General Secretary of the Tuvan People's Revolutionary Party in 1932. He stayed in power in Tuva until his death in 1973.